It would never even occur to them to say "we need to govern ourselves".
First Nations groups have been bleating about self-government and sovereignty for decades.
The problem is that their version of self-government doesn't involve any self-taxation or revenue generation, so "sovereignty" boils down to continued federal funding without any oversight, accountability, responsibilities or failsafes.
The shakedown also never ends. When self-governing First Nations leadership fail to address their communities' problems, there's never any self-reflection or accountability, just more whining about the federal government failing them/system racism and going back to Ottawa hat-in-hand looking for more funding.
There's also the delusion that every reservation in the country, over 600 of them, should be legally and politically be recognized as a sovereign country or "Nation", negotiating with Canada on a "Nation-to-Nation" basis. When in reality, most reservations are closer to a podunk town with one or two big extended families, that have no taxation power, no industry and no infrastructure.
First Nations are also obsessed with a weird version of collective conservatism. The solution to every economic and social problem is always to "look back our heritage and return to our cultural traditions". Which is fine in theory, but also just gets adopted without question or evidence how outdated native practices from hundreds of years ago are supposed to feed your citizens, build infrastructure, great jobs, treat addictions, raise children out of poverty, fight sexual abuse, etc.
It's just magical thinking that if we could just return to how things were before the white man arrived (while still taking the white man's handouts and embracing all European technology and creature comforts), that a modern collective utopia will emerge.
First Nations groups have been bleating about self-government and sovereignty for decades.
The problem is that their version of self-government doesn't involve any self-taxation or revenue generation, so "sovereignty" boils down to continued federal funding without any oversight, accountability, responsibilities or failsafes.
The shakedown also never ends. When self-governing First Nations leadership fail to address their communities' problems, there's never any self-reflection or accountability, just more whining about the federal government failing them/system racism and going back to Ottawa hat-in-hand looking for more funding.
There's also the delusion that every reservation in the country, over 600 of them, should be legally and politically be recognized as a sovereign country or "Nation", negotiating with Canada on a "Nation-to-Nation" basis. When in reality, most reservations are closer to a podunk town with one or two big extended families, that have no taxation power, no industry and no infrastructure.
First Nations are also obsessed with a weird version of collective conservatism. The solution to every economic and social problem is always to "look back our heritage and return to our cultural traditions". Which is fine in theory, but also just gets adopted without question or evidence how outdated native practices from hundreds of years ago are supposed to feed your citizens, build infrastructure, great jobs, treat addictions, raise children out of poverty, fight sexual abuse, etc.
It's just magical thinking that if we could just return to how things were before the white man arrived (while still taking the white man's handouts and embracing all European technology and creature comforts), that a modern collective utopia will emerge.